Community, Connection and Really Good Food!

“Vote with your food dollars.”

“Keep your money in the local economy.”

“Know your farmer, know your food.”

Are you familiar with any of these phrases?  What about “Sign-Up Now?”  Or “Join now so you don’t miss out!”  Hey, those are my lines and we’ve been using them a lot as we are trying to encourage people to sign up for CSA shares before the season starts in three short weeks!  “Miss out on what?  It’s just vegetables, what’s the big deal about CSA anyway?"  Does any of this “support your local food system” talk even matter? 

Andrea B. sampling grapes  (photo from localthirty.com)

Earlier this year, my friend (ok, we’ve only met once, but she’s awesome) Andrea Bemis released a film called Local Thirty.  This was one of the main films featured at Fairshare CSA Coalition’s Food and Farms Film Fest this past March.  While many documentaries about our food system over the past 10-12 years have been very informative and brought important truths to light, some have been pretty heavy and intense!  This film was different.  It was about food, forming connections, and finding a sense of “home.”  It focused on exploring your local food system and the positive impact that can have on our lives and our meals.  It was a welcome relief to watch a film about our food system that made me laugh, chuckle, yet still pushed me to think about my own food choices.

Andrea B. is a real live farmer who grows vegetables at the base of Mt Hood in Oregon along with her husband, Taylor.  In addition to farming, Andrea B also writes a blog called Dishing Up the Dirt, which is also the title of her cookbook!  If you’ve followed my CookingWith the Box articles on our blog over the past few CSA seasons, you’ll likely recognize her blog as I have shared many of her recipes along the way.  It all started back in September 2018 when Andrea B, her husband Taylor, and their farm crew (Adam and Rachel) decided to challenge themselves to source all of their ingredients from within a 200 mile radius.  They had 10 cheat foods each (eg coffee, lemons, black pepper, etc), but aside from those foods they only ate the things they could source within 200 miles.  Why would anyone do something like this?  They didn’t really have an end goal or mission they were hoping to achieve.  They used this time as a framework for learning and discovering their local food system.  What treasures (both food and people) were they missing?  It was about finding more of a sense of “home.” 

Andrea B with a freshly caught tuna!
(photo from localthirty.com0

As they prepared for and lived out the month of September, they had to do their research to find some of the ingredients they didn’t produce themselves.  Research for Andrea B went beyond the internet, she actually left the farm to visit people she’d never met before so she could learn more about what they were doing.  She had the opportunity to stomp grapes at a vineyard, take a wild fishing trip off the coast to catch tuna, visit a dairy farm and drink milk right from the cow, forage for wild mushrooms and walk the pastures on a neighbor’s cattle ranch.  And what became of all of this?

The final producer meal (photo from localthirty.com)

Here is Andrea B’s conclusion in her own words:  “Eating locally for me is about discovering and celebrating what we have, not mourning what we don't. It's about strangers becoming friends, and learning more about our landscape and the place we call home. When we start looking around and talking to each other, it becomes evident that we just have so much……When I first set out on a month long challenge to only eat ingredients produced within 200 miles of my home I had no idea how transforming that experiment would be. Eating the foods I found and prepared rooted me deeper into my home. They were the flesh of plants I touched and animals I knew. This made me feel more alive, wild and human. I found out that eating locally is about discovering and celebrating a bounty that is all our own and letting it shape a little bit of who we are. It's about joy.”

So does it really matter if you know your farmer?  Does it matter if you eat food from local sources?  Does the story behind the food you eat mean anything?  Does being part of a CSA or shopping at the farmers’ market impact your life in any way that‘s different than shopping at the grocery store?  Well for some people, perhaps these things don’t really matter.  But for me…yes, it matters and yes, it’s important.  Andrea B. is right, it’s about joy and forming connections. 

Food is political, food is social justice and injustice, food is linked to our environment and our economy.  But food is also relational.  It’s a bridge to bring our lives together.  You just don’t know what treasures you might discover and what stories you will unveil when you take the time to look.  Connection.  Whether we know it or not, we all need connection.  Every time you learn a little more about your food sources, you’re allowing a little piece of someone else’s world to become part of yours. This does bring joy, appreciation, respect and understanding.  It causes you to think outside of yourself and your own experiences while at the same time, bringing some stinkin’ delicious food to your tables!  Yes, I’m convinced that food tastes better when you know the story about where it came from.

The fertile soil and beautiful fields of Harmony Valley Farm

So back to the original question, does any of this “support your local food system” talk even matter?  I believe the answer is “Yes.”  At the very least, if you like to eat good food I guarantee you’ll find some of your best ingredients when you look locally.  The other part of this “Yes” is the community piece.  CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, but this isn’t a one-way concept.  We need the community to support our farm, but the community also needs to be supported by those producing food!  In the end, we all have a part in this thing we call our local food system, or in Andrea B’s words, the place we call home. 

In closing, I’ll leave you with one last message.  Our deliveries start in just three short weeks, so Join Now So You Don’t Miss Out!  If you’re looking to add a new dimension as well as some joy and really great food to your meals, we hope you’ll not only join us for the 2019 CSA season but encourage you to see what other treasures you can find within your local food system this year.

---Farmer/Chef Andrea

NOTE:  Go to  www.localthirty.com for more information about Andrea Bemis’s documentary and how to watch the whole thing.  It’s only 46 minutes long, so make some snacks and kick back to watch it this weekend!

The Local Thirty..30 days, 200 miles

By Andrea Yoder

For those of you who have been members with our farm for awhile and read the newsletter pretty regularly, you may already know that I first came to the farm back in 2007 as the summer farm chef.  I knew very little, much less than I realized at the time.  I came because my two favorite things to cook were fish and vegetables, the latter being the focus of my attention when I accepted the position.  I didn’t know much about what it meant to be certified organic or why I would come to value eating certified organic food, but I was eager to learn and accepted the challenge.  I don’t recall Richard every telling me that all the food I purchased and prepared for the crew had to be 100% certified organic, but it seemed a bit contradictory for it to be any other way.  So I raised the bar and strived to achieve it with each menu I planned and each purchase I made. 

Chef Andrea getting ready to process beets.

But that wasn’t the only thing I had to figure out.  There was this thing called ‘seasonal eating’ that also factored into my cooking.  It snowed the first week I was here, so there wasn’t much coming out of the fields.  No worries, there was a pallet of “extras” waiting for me in the cooler.  Carrots, sunchokes, black radishes, beets….notice I didn’t mention potatoes.  That’s right, I cooked for several months without a single potato.  As I kicked off the season, I quickly learned that I really enjoyed the challenge of seasonal cooking and worked really hard to incorporate as many of the vegetables we were growing into the meals I was preparing for the crew.  Sourcing certified organic ingredients wasn’t too hard, but it did mean that there were some ingredients that just weren’t available for me to use.  Somewhere along the way I also began to value sourcing ingredients locally.  Maybe it was the fun of trading with other vendors at the farmers’ market.  Maybe it was the experience of going over to our friends’ farm, Jim & Phyllis, to help them catch the chickens they had raised for us and then helping Elizabeth butcher them.  I valued each and every chicken that I prepared that summer and not a morsel went to waste.  Along the way Richard challenged me to take the concept of a CSA Cheese Share and turn it into a reality.  I called a lot of cheese producers, asked them a lot of questions and was finally able to narrow down the list of farmers that met our qualifications.  Of course I wanted to make sure we knew what we were distributing, so I visited each producer so I could see for myself that they were the real thing….and they were.  Over the course of time my diet and outlook on food has changed.  I can’t say that I know the origin of every single ingredient in my kitchen, but I can usually identify the majority of what we eat and I continue to challenge myself to keep searching. 

Andrea Bemis, from her website dishingupthedirt.com

Andrea Bemis is a vegetable farmer, along with her husband Taylor, at their small farm in Oregon.  She also has a food blog and a cookbook, both titled Dishing Up the Dirt.  I follow her blog regularly and have adapted, referenced and shared quite a few of her vegetable-centric, simple recipes over the past several years.  Earlier this year she announced a challenge that she called “The Local Thirty.”  For the month of September Andrea and Taylor challenged themselves to source all their food within 200 miles for 30 days.  She did allow herself 10 “cheat items,” partly because there are some very enjoyable foods that were part of her diet that can’t be sourced locally (like coffee and chocolate) and because the challenge wasn’t about deprivation as much as it was becoming more informed about the foods she was consuming.  She identified “three pillars” that are the most important considerations when choosing food.  These include wellness (Is it good for the body?), sustainability (Is it good for the planet?) and community (Is it good for other people?)  The closer you are to the source of your food, the more opportunity you have to know more about the people who are producing and/or distributing the food as well as the intricacies related to how it’s being produced.  At the end of her announcement about her personal challenge, she stated “For the 30 days of September I’m going to source all of my ingredients from a 200 mile radius of where I live.  I’m hoping that in doing so I will find a more grounded sense of place and a community of folks that I never knew existed.”

Well, the month of September is officially over and so is Andrea’s challenge.  I applaud her for keeping up with this project in the midst of the growing season, but she did it and managed to document her experiences intermittently on her blog as well as more frequently on Instagram.  In one post she commented "As we navigate through finding local resources for some of our favorite ingredients I'm learning that this month isn't going to be perfect. But that's okay. We are meeting so many amazing folks who are making our community a better place. And the community is reaching farther than our tiny corner of the world as I get to be a part of so many of your local journeys as well." She recently posted on her blog about her experience of getting to go tuna fishing.  In this post she commented “When I began really exploring where my food comes from, I started to realize that this is not so much about the ingredients for me anymore.  It’s about these people (most often strangers) and how little pieces of their world make up mine.”  Her comment struck me.  She’s totally right.

Our Dane County Farmers' Market crew!

There are many reasons to eat locally, we’ve all heard the lingo.  “Keep your food dollars local.”  “Know your farmer, know your food.”  If you’re curious about your food and your community, or if you really just want to have a source for the best tasting food, local is the way to go.  In this region we are so blessed with a rich supply of really great food!  If we take a little time to look around, it’s easy to find some awesome people making some really great food that is special.  Special because it’s made with care, passion and sincerity.  Special because you get to connect with the people behind it.  At our recent Harvest Party I had a conversation with a member about the beauty of an egg laid by a happy chicken on pasture.  Grocery store eggs, even most organic ones, are not the same.  She asked me “how do I get these eggs.”  My simple answer, “You need a supplier.  You have to talk to farmers, find someone who’s doing it right and get on their list.” 

When we sit down to eat, we really enjoy eating chicken from our friend Gretchen, roasted vegetables from our farm tossed with sunflower oil produced by our friends at Driftless Organics.  We enjoy Castle Rock cream from the Kostka family in our morning cup of coffee, roasted locally by our friends at Kickapoo Coffee.  I’m not trying to be high and mighty here, just agreeing with Andrea B. that it’s really cool to be able to identify where my food comes from and to think about and appreciate the people who work hard to bring it to my table.  It’s much more satisfying than opening a package from afar and not knowing much if anything about what I’m putting into my body.  If we do choose to eat food grown outside our local area, there's opportunities to source these things carefully as well.  For instance, Frog Hollow Farm in California, one of our fruit share producer partners, also makes olive oil with the olives they produce on their farm.  Marian Farms, also in California, is my source for raisins and almonds.  While these foods can't be sourced locally, I appreciate the opportunity to at least purchase them directly from the producers, especially because I have had the chance to talk to them personally and want to support what they're doing!  Food is personal, at least I think it should be.

While Andrea didn’t intend to do this in the beginning, she actually connected with some filmmaker friends who traveled with her and documented some of her experiences associated with her challenge.  She’s turning it into a documentary that will hopefully be done before the end of the year!  I look forward to hearing more about her experiences, reflections, etc.  In the meantime, I encourage each of you to take a look in your backyard and see what you can find.  You might be surprised by what you find. If you already have some sources for awesome local foods, share them with your friends and neighbors so they too can support these local producers and together we can do our best to build a strong community and a strong food system!  Of course, along the way you'll glean nourishment for your soul and some really great meals!